Parade of ambulances take patients to new hospital

Jerri Harrison is wheeled to an ambulance to be transferred to the new Kaiser Permanente Anaheim Medical Center on Wednesday. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Tana Harvey, a unit manager in the emergency department, on Wednesday signs the sign that hung in front of Kaiser Permanente Lakeview Hospital on Lakeview Avenue in Anaheim. Harvey has worked at the hospital, which is closing, for 30 years. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Rosielin Romano, a clinical lab scientist, takes photos of the line of ambulances outside Kaiser Permanente Lakeview Hospital in Anaheim on Wednesday morning as patients are moved. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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A mover rolls boxes through the empty lobby of Kaiser Permanente Lakeview Hospital in Anaheim on Wednesday. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Gilbert Reyes carries a sign across the parking lot outside Kaiser Permanente Lakeview Hospital in Anaheim on Wednesday morning. Kaiser is opening a new hospital on La Palma Avenue. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Members of the clinical lab have their photo taken in front of a line of ambulances that are waiting to move patients outside Kaiser Permanente Lakeview Hospital in Anaheim on Wednesday. The patients are being moved to the new La Palma Avenue facility. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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A patient is wheeled to an ambulance to be transferred to the new Kaiser Permanente Anaheim Medical Center on Wednesday. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Members of the emergency-room staff pose Wednesday for a group portrait with the sign that had hung in front of Kaiser Permanente Lakeview Hospital in Anaheim. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Gilbert Reyes places a cover over the sign outside the emergency room at Kaiser Permanente Lakeview Hospital on in Anaheim on Wednesday. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Jun Aragon, left, Janice Tacderas and Rosielin Romano, all clinical lab scientists, take photos of the line of ambulances outside Kaiser Permanente Lakeview Hospital in Anaheim on Wednesday. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Employees have their photo taken in front of Kaiser Permanente Lakeview Hospital in Anaheim as Gilbert Reyes places a cover over the sign outside the emergency room on Wednesday. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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On Wednesday, the hospital command center monitors the movement of patients to the new Kaiser Permanente Anaheim Medical Center from the Kaiser Permanente Lakeview Hospital, which is being closed. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Kaiser Permanente Lakeview Hospital in Anaheim moved patients and equipment to its new hospital, Kaiser Permanente Anaheim Medical Center on East La Palma Avenue in Anaheim, on Wednesday. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Thousands of babies were delivered at Kaiser Permanente Lakeview Hospital in Anaheim. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Pharrin Hay and Ponh King with their son, Wesley, born at 9:12 am Wednesday at the new Kaiser Permanente Anaheim Medical Center on East La Palma Avenue in Anaheim. He was the first child to be born at the hospital, which opened Wednesday. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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The new Kaiser Permanente Anaheim Medical Center on East La Palma Avenue in Anaheim, which opened on Wednesday. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

ANAHEIM – Physicians and staffers at Kaiser Permanente in Anaheim said goodbye to a family member Wednesday – their old hospital.

More than 60 patients were taken by ambulance to the new 262-bed, $425 million Anaheim Medical Center on La Palma Avenue as the old Lakeview Avenue facility closed after 33 years as a Kaiser hospital.

"The building grew up, and we grew with it," said Christy Hartman, the lead respiratory therapist, with the hospital during its entire Kaiser run.

In the old hospital's parking lot, about 10 ambulances lined up outside the emergency room at 7 a.m. to wait for patients to be wheeled out on gurneys, flanked by nurses and emergency technicians.

A tiny, wrinkled baby wrapped in blankets and sealed in a neonatal intensive-care chamber was carted out and into an ambulance.

Dr. Joshua Cain, an anesthesiologist overseeing the move, said babies in the intensive-care unit, women in labor and emergency-room patients were transported first to avoid keeping the old hospital open longer than necessary.

"The last thing we need is a laboring patient for 14 hours when we're trying to close the hospital," he said.

Julie Miller-Phipps, senior vice president and executive director for the hospital, led a war room of staffers in blue shirts keeping track of patients via a bank of phones and laptops. By 11 a.m., more than half of the patients were in the new hospital, well ahead of schedule.

"You always plan for what we you don't expect and we haven't had any surprises, which is a good surprise," Miller-Phipps said.

Kaiser had run table-top exercises of the move, test runs with ambulances, and training in the new hospital.

Wednesday's ride to the new hospital was Jerri Harrison's first time in an ambulance. Her new room isn't hugely different from the one she had at Lakeview. She said the 1.5-mile ride was uneventful.

Mario Cuevas, assistant clinical director, said the move is bittersweet because the smaller hospital fostered a family atmosphere that will be impossible to copy at the much-larger medical center.

"For the old folks, it's never going to be the same, but the new people will never know what it was like," Cuevas said.

Kaiser's new 27-acre hospital campus, just west of Tustin Avenue, includes two medical-office buildings, which are already open, and a 3-acre healing garden with an area for outdoor physical therapy. The 36-bay emergency department contains rooms specially designed for trauma, pediatrics and cardiology patients.

Dianne Simendinger of Yorba Linda said she looks forward to her husband's team of physicians being more connected through the new computer system.

"They're going to be giving him a lot of medications, and I want to make sure they're not going to give him anything that conflicts," she said.

Kaiser officials have said the old hospital building will undergo seismic retrofitting and then be put to other medical uses.

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